To Die Would Be an Awfully Big Adventure
by DisenchantedDestroya
Summary: Set early Season One. The boys take on a case in the town of Silent Oak where little girls have started falling out of the sky for apparently no reason. Whilst on the case Dean helps Sam deal with his grief over Jess.
1. Deals for Distraction

**A/N: ****_Just to set a few things straight, this story is set in early Season 1. I'm thinking after Pilot but definitely before Bloody Mary. This is a case-fic but is also just an excuse for me to write brotherly fluff and Sam angst. _**

**Warning: THIS WILL INCLUDE THE DEATH OF CHILDREN. **

**000**

**Prologue - Deal for Distraction**

It's hot, acridly so. But then again, it's Texas in the middle of summer; it's not exactly supposed to be the arctic, is it?

The heat is gnawing relentlessly at the exposed back of Dean Winchester's neck, the sun's harsh rays piercing his skin and making it bleed out sweat. He feels like he's in one of those weird paintings where everything is melting. The piping hot bag of Chinese takeout clutched in his hands isn't exactly helping the situation.

He somehow manages to unlock the stiff motel room door with one hand, steps through the threshold and shoulders the door shut heavily behind him with a _slam_. Lively green eyes scan the room, landing on Dean's younger but bigger brother.

Sam is right where Dean left him; propped up against the wall on the bed furthest away from the door, his precious laptop damn near glued to his face. It's like the kid hasn't even breathed or blinked since before his big brother went out to get food. Hell, Sam's been like this at _every_ stop since Jess died.

Dean sighs and drops the takeout onto the small kitchenette's table, the dull thud making Sam look away from his laptop screen. There are huge great black bags under Sam's eyes, his face is growing to be gaunt and his cheeks appear to be hollowing out from the inside, like something is scooping all of the fat and muscle out of him.

In short, Sam's grief over losing Jessica Lee Moore and subsequent need to distract himself from aforementioned grief is _killing _him. And that, in turn, _kills _Dean. Because he's meant to take care of Sammy. _Always take care of Sammy._

"You better be watching porn on that." The big brother huffs, smirking at the flustered blush it brings to Sam's face. "Seriously though, Sammy, you need _some_ downtime. And you ain't got nothing to research anyways, we just wrapped up a case."

Ignoring the forced rolling of Sam's eyes he throws a generously sized bag of prawn crackers at his little brother and gets to work liberating his mouth-wateringly aromatic chicken chow mein from its imprisonment. He flops into the tattered chair at the table before tucking in hungrily, _pretending_ not to watch his little brother as Sam picks at a cracker with mild disinterest.

"Actually, I think we do have a case." Sam explains, _pretending_ he hasn't noticed Dean watching him like an overly protective mother. It would be kind of touching if it wasn't so annoying. "A small town a few hours out from here called Silent Oak."

"Creepy name." Dean responds around a massive mouthful of noodles that not even Sam can believe the older Winchester managed to stuff into his mouth without choking to death. "So what's going down in Silent Oak? Killer trees?"

Sam frowns at Dean's dismissiveness and carries his laptop over to the small table.

"Not quite." Sam clicks on a link and the dull webpage for Silent Oak Town News pops up, robbing half of Dean's attention away from his meal. Sam reads the main headline out loud; "Eighth Child Falls to Death in Freak Twenty Day Suicide Plague."

"Okay, Sammy." Dean nods like an intrigued pre-school teacher asking about an unhinged child's finger painting of a murdered family. "I'm listening."

"Good." Sam pulls the laptop back to face him. "Eight kids, all under the age of eleven, have jumped out of windows and died in the past twenty days." He sees Dean's grimace and nods in agreement of the open disgusted sympathy. "All little girls, all jumped out of open bedroom windows at their homes. The press is blaming violent television programs and the like."

Dean shakes his head knowingly, smelling the vile stench of some definite foul play all over this thing. Dean always hates it when little kids are involved in a case; he knows better than anyone, apart from maybe his brother, how much this crap can screw up someone's childhood.

He studies his brother for a prolonged moment. Sam looks to be almost proud of himself for finding this obvious case but still very much as exhausted as he has been since the fire. As much as Dean hates to think it, he can't help but wish that Sam was still at Stanford with Jess cradled in his arms.

Shaking that _bad_ thought away, Dean gestures for Sam to continue explaining the facts.

"All the girls were, according to the paper, little angels from perfectly good homes. Happy kids, too. No reason in the world to jump out of a freaking window." Sam rubs at his eyes with his knuckles, a sure sign of his biting fatigue. "Youngest jumper was six, Dean. A goddamn _six-year-old!_"

"Shit." Dean breathes, for that's the only thing he can really think to say to that.

Sam slumps haphazardly into the last empty seat at the table, picking restlessly at his destroyed nail beds. He looks almost nervous and Dean knows all too well why; it's late, sleep is creeping just around the corner and waiting to pounce on the brothers. Which means a new slew of grief and guilt induced nightmares for Sam.

Letting out a tense huff of a breath, Dean pushes his coveted box of noodles towards his little brother, cutlery and all. The kid needs a decent meal in him if he's even contemplating a hunt. Sleep would be good too, but Dean's nothing if not a realist.

The box is immediately pushed back to Dean and he feels at a loss. Rule Number One has always been _look after Sammy_, but now his little brother won't let him do that, won't even let him try. And it _sucks_. Sucks like whore.

"You want us to take this case?" Sam nods at Dean's question, a 'well, duh' look obvious on the former's face. "Why?"

"Is that even a question?" Sam gawps. "Little kids are _dying, _Dean!"

"Yeah, I get that, Sam." Dean snaps back, stress and corked-up but still bubbling worry making him short tempered. "But what's the _real_ reason here, huh, Sammy?" He knows he's treading on dangerous ground now but avoiding the subject of his little brother's dead girlfriend hasn't helped him at all thus far. "This is about Jess and finding a distraction, isn't it?"

Sam visibly flinches, the mention of her mere name striking him like a lightning bolt straight to the heart, and just like that Dean knows that he is right, that his big brother instincts didn't die whilst Sam was away at Stanford. Dean is _always _right about Sam things.

"_Shut up_, Dean." Sam hisses venomously, looking at anything that isn't his brother in an act of both denial and fear of being seen through. "This is about _little _kids _dying _in Silent Oak."

"Yeah, and I crap rainbows."

For a moment or two it looks like Sam is gearing up to punch his brother, both hands balled into fists at his sides in threat, and Dean would have let him take a free swing; after watching his dad for the best part of his life Dean knows it's better to release the anger than try to hold it in.

Dean thinks he could have been a therapist if he wasn't condemned to the life of a hunter.

Instead of decking Dean in his pretty little face though, Sam deflates miserably and slams both fists down on the flimsy table. _Hard_. It's physically painful for Dean to see his kid brother like this so, against his better judgement, decides to drop it. For now, at least.

"We'll take it." Dean declares after a small expanse of a deafening silence, earning him a grateful little understated smile from his brother. The smile makes the defeat worth it.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." The older nods, a sneaky plan formulating shamelessly in his head. "On a few conditions, of course." Sam quirks an eyebrow and Dean smirks in victory. He hates to take advantage of Sam's tired and desperate state but he is by no means above it. "First off, we leave after and _only _after you've eaten these noodles."

The half empty box is nudged over to Sam once again and the youngest feels bile clawing its way up his scratchy throat. Eating is too normal right now and to do so would be accepting that _she's really gone and left him._

But little girls are dropping out of the sky like dead flies and they might be able to stop it. Sam's not about to let more people lose their loved ones like he has. So he picks up the fork and places a minuscule portion of the lukewarm food into his mouth. Dean nods his pained approval.

"Good." He smiles softly, feeling more like a father than a brother. "Condition Number Two: you at least _try _to sleep all the way through the journey." He's sees Sammy's eyes take on a frightened sheen at that, like a rabbit's eyes in headlights, and feels a stab of guilt jolt through his body. But Dean won't relent; he _can't_. "You're looking _bad_, Sam. You need some beauty sleep before you get even uglier."

Sam laughs and it sounds like the song of a rare but beautiful bird.

"Jerk."

"Bitch." The exchange feels good, comforting in its normality. "So, we got a deal?"

Looking at his smiling big brother and then at the headline on his bright laptop screen, Sam doesn't even need to think about his answer. Not really, anyway.

"Yeah. Yeah, we do."

**000**

**A/N: **Thank you very much for reading this and I hope you liked it! I know this is kinda short, but the chapters will get longer as the story progresses. I've got it all written out already so I just need to type it up and post it, so I won't leave this story unfinished unless you guys hate it. The next part should be up on Sunday because I'm going camping for the rest of the week.

Thanks again for reading this and **please let me know what you think! :D**


	2. Welcome to Paradise

**Chapter One - Welcome to Paradise**

Dean doesn't like the motel at Silent Oak one little bit.

It's basic, even by their rather low standards. It's a cheap dig though, not to mention _extremely _central, so it will have to do. Not like there's any choice here anyway, not when Silent Oak Motel is the _only _motel in Silent Oak.

The room is really nothing more than a glorified shoebox with a door. The twin beds are reminiscent of rotting, mildewy cardboard and the puke-coloured carpet is sprinkled with somewhat suspicious stains. There isn't even a little kitchenette area or a _damn_ television with blessed pay-per-view.

The room is also without wifi or any other means of connecting to the Worldwide Web. Something that Sam is sure to gripe about no end when he wakes up.

That's right; Dean's plan worked. Sam conked clean out about twenty minutes into the journey to the purring lullaby of the Impala's finely tuned engine. It reminded Dean of when their dad would have to drive around late at night just to get a screaming baby Sammy to sleep and give the Winchester men a moment of peace.

When Dean pulled into the motel's parking lot some five hours after Sam nodded off, the kid was still dead to the world. So he left his little brother that way, more than happy to let Sammy get some much needed shut-eye. If the kid needed to be in his big brother's Impala to get it, then so be it.

The one thing that their shoddy excuse for a room _does _have is a wall clock, also suspiciously stained, hung up just above the door. The perpetual ticking is too loud and most of the numbers are faded, some gone completely, but the thing still by some miracle works. Dean looks up at aforementioned clock from his spot perched on the bed closest to the door.

It's nine in the morning; a couple of minutes past, in fact. And Dean is _starving._

Deciding that almost thirteen hours of sleep is plenty for Sam to function on, Dean springs up with renewed vigour and toes his shoes on. One of the motel's far too few redeeming features is that it has a diner in the parking lot and the older Winchester brother is more than ready to sample the local cuisine of Silent Oak.

Locking the door behind him and dropping the rust-bitten key into his jean pocket, Dean strides out into the parking lot, the sun already beating down on his back like a whip.

His beloved Impala isn't too hard to spot considering it's the only car parked in this godforsaken dust field of a parking lot. The guy on reception had nearly died of shock when Dean had asked for a room late last night; apparently not a lot of tourists fancy Silent Oak as a worthy holiday destination. If the town's anything like the motel, then Dean can definitely see why.

Brushing all of the many derogatory thoughts of this deadbeat town away he sprints for his beloved Baby, knowing that Sam had a good night's sleep putting a spring in his brotherly step.

Skidding to a stop at the passenger side of his car he hammers his fist against the window, but not too hard so as not to hurt Baby. Sam, who had been out cold and drooling more than a little bit, jolts awake, looks around and then scowls half-heartedly as his ridiculously chirpy brother. He opens his door, frown planted firmly on his lips in an impressive bitch-face, and lets out a massive catlike yawn.

"I thought you _wanted _me to sleep." Sam mumbles sleepily, looking thoroughly exhausted despite his dream marathon.

Dean wonders just how peaceful his brother's night really was; had his brother been trapped in some horrific nightmare? Those thoughts are quickly pushed aside and he holds out a hand, yanking Sam out of the car to stand upright next to him.

"Yeah, but if you'd slept any longer I'm pretty sure you'd have been classified as comatose."

He shuts the car door and locks her up, then turns to silently analyse his baby brother, his charge; Dean hasn't got a PhD in Sammy Care from sitting on his ass when his brother needs him. Sam looks no better than he did the night before. _Damn_.

"You good?"

"I'm _fine_, Dean." Sam huffs, rolling his tired eyes like a pissy teen being lectured by his overbearing father. He looks around, only just noticing the wreck of a motel in front of him. It looks more like a hillbilly's rundown bungalow than a motel. "We're staying _here?_"

"We've had worse."

"T.V.?" Dean shakes his head, eyes on the ground. "Kitchen?" Another reluctant shake. "Fridge?" Shake. "Internet?"

This time when Dean finally gets around to shaking his head Sam really looks like he's about to turn into an even more wrathful version of the Incredible Hulk. The thought of Geek Boy without his beloved internet makes Dean smirk in a way that only big brothers can.

"_But_ I asked and there's a town library about a five minute walk from here." Dean rattles off the tourist information he'd found at the front desk and this seems to placate Sam who nods, his eyes still hazed with the luxury of sleep. The older starts his journey across the parking lot towards the ugly white building with a blinking neon sign reading '-IN-R' hanging in the window. "C'mon, Sleeping Beauty, time for some breakfast."

Sam scurries after Dean, wondering what kind of hellhole his dumbass of a brother has checked them into. Quickly taking stock of his surroundings now sleep is no longer completely clogging his brain, Sam comes to the conclusion that there's a good possibility that he'll catch an STI just by lying on a bed in this place.

Still, a job is a job and he'll be dammed if he's about to let more little girls die over his dislike of the accommodation. The pain of sleeping in Hooker Central for a few nights pales in comparison to the _agony_ of losing a loved one. Sam knows that better than most.

That thought makes him freeze, blink three times, shake his head and carry on determinedly to match strides with Dean.

"I think I need a shower before I go out anywhere. I have just slept in a car all night."

Anyone else would wholeheartedly agree with Sam but not Dean. Dean knows Sam is only saying it to get out of hanging around him, so that Sam can go back to their crappy little room and wallow miserably in his sorrow and self-loathing. And Dean's not about to let that happen.

But he's also not about to admit that he knows the truth.

"Look at this place, Sammy." He gestures to the empty but scruffy parking lot, the viciously vandalized building of the motel, the cracked windows and the peeling white pain on the outside walls of the diner. "You're practically a freaking _princess_ by this place's standards. Hell, you're a _queen among men_ here, Sam."

"I should at least change my clothes." Sam shoots back too quickly, a silent shake in his voice letting on that he knows all too well that he's trapped. "I mean, I slept in 'em and all."

"_We _are going to _that _diner for breakfast _right now." _Dean grits out, using a tone that he reserves solely for whenever his little brother needs to be reminded who exactly is boss. He doesn't think he's used it since they were both teenagers and Sam decided the Impala would be good to use for driving practice without supervision. "So suck it up buttercup."

Tense shoulders slumping in admitted defeat, Sam complies to the order with a perturbed sigh. Dean knows his brother wouldn't normally give in so easily but is more than content to let this one go.

The rest of the short walk to the dilapidated diner is made in a strained, stagnant silence.

Walking into the small diner, the boys are pleasantly surprised by their surroundings. It is by no means The Ritz but the place isn't too bad either, especially not when compared to the motel itself. There's a balding old man sat at the table next to the smeary double doors but that's it as far as other patrons are concerned. There's a pretty little redhead waitress though, dressed in a salmon pink uniform leaning against the counter, her face the very definition of boredom.

Sam spots a full rack of newspapers by the doors and grabs a random one before following Dean to a table. Taking a seat, he opens the newspaper to see the main headline in bold black print, proclaiming Silent Oak's grief for the plethora of dead girls. He shows it to Dean and the older nods, a silent promise that they _will _put a stop to these atrocities.

Deciding that it is not the best idea to dwell on death with an empty stomach, Dean picks up the dog-eared old menu and grins in contentment at the vast array of food on offer. He is _starving_.

"I guess this place ain't so bad after all." He mutters to himself, deciding that he'll have the full cooked breakfast with extra bacon and then handing the menu pointedly to Sam. "What you having?"

"Coffee." Sam grunts. "Black." He turns his attention back to the tragic newspaper article in his hands.

"_Sammy_." Dean growls lowly, knowing that he can't let his brother run around both tired _and _hungry on a hunt. Or at all, for that matter. The addressed looks up and quirks an eyebrow, perfectly feigning the innocence of a lost child in a crowded shopping mall. "Coffee ain't breakfast, Kiddo."

"For me it is."

And with that Sam makes an exaggerated show of turning to the next page in his newspaper. It shows a photograph of the latest dead girl, Darcy Brown, smiling with her mother outside of their cookie-cutter home. She was only eight years old when her future was snatched away from her.

Now Sam isn't sure if he'll even be able to handle consuming a simple straight-up black coffee.

"Nice try, Sam." Dean chides, plucking the paper out of Sam's hands and folding it absently onto the empty chair next to him. Sam all but snarls in response. "Now, what are you gonna _eat?_"

"_Coffee._"

"That's a drink, dumbass." Dean's tattered nerves are wearing thin and both Winchester's know it. It's just a question of which brother snaps first; it's a test of endurance. "I'm talking about food. Y'know, something you actually have to _chew_."

Deep, _deep_ down Sam knows that Dean is only trying to help him out, take care of him like he did in the 'good old days'. He knows that Dean is worried as hell about him. He's just too grief-stricken to fully give a damn about it, _any _of it.

Sam looks out of the grubby window and straight out onto the Silent Oak's main high street; at least the motel really is central, he thinks.

Immediately opposite the diner is a bookstore, with a small drugstore and a long since shutdown video rental on either side. The sidewalk is cracked and ghostly in its utter desertion. Sam can't help but think that the town's very brickwork looks to be in mourning.

"You boys ready to order?" The waitress chirps in a sugary voice, a smile on her red lips that could win her Miss America.

Sam sees his golden opportunity and cuts in before Dean can order him something that's ninety per cent grease and tastes like a biker's unwashed armpit.

"Two coffees and a stack of pancakes, please." Dean glares at him like a chained dog at a cat but Sam just ignores it. "Extra bacon."

"Sure thing, hon." She grins, using a pink push pen to jot the order down in her little notebook and pushing a strand of her ginger hair out of her freckled face. "I ain't seen you two around here before. You staying in the motel?"

"Sure are." Dean cuts in, unwilling to let Sam keep his control of the situation. He pulls out his fake FBI badge from his jacket pocket and flashes it at the waitress alongside a wink. "Unfortunately we're here on business, not pleasure."

"Oh." Her cheery smile slips and gives way to an expression of pure sorrow. "The girls…"

"You know about that?"

The woman nods solemnly and blinks hard, her breathing get tight in her chest. Both brothers share a knowing glance, willingly putting aside their little tiff for the sake of the case.

"My own little Sally is, _was_, Darcy Brown's best friend." She sighs, her voice filled with so much sincere heartbreak that it makes the two tough hunters feel it too. "Poor sweet thing." She shakes her head, does her best to regain her kilowatt beam and holds out a hand to Dean who shakes it without an ounce of hesitation. "I'm Maggie. Maggie Donald."

"I'm Agent Knight." He gestures with his hand to Sam, who shakes Maggie's hand as soon as the slender appendage is offered to him. "This is Agent Pulford."

"We're going to figure this thing out, Maggie." Sam vows, just as much to himself as to the waitress."

"You look like smart fellas, I'm sure you'll put this simply _awful_ business away nice and quick." She smiles sweetly, one hand resting idly on her hip, fingers playing with the string of her apron. "So, two coffees and a stack with extra bacon?"

Dean narrows his eyes mutinously at Sam, then turns to sic his best and most charming grin on Maggie. Because Sammy is _not _wasting away on his watch; no way. Grief or no grief, Dean is not about to let his baby brother starve himself.

"Can I add a full breakfast to that, Sweetheart?"

"Sure can."

Maggie walks off to give the order to the kitchen, her kitten heels clicking rhythmically against the linoleum floor, leaving an annoyingly smug Dean and a perturbed Sam behind her. Sam swallows his anger though, reminding himself that he has much bigger fish to fry here.

"Morgue or family?" He asks as though it's a normal question, like asking someone what the time is. Well, he thinks bitterly, for them it _is_ normal as that. "Or scene?"

"I'm thinking Sally Donald." Sam looks somewhat confused by the answer and Dean shakes his head in distaste; he can clearly tell that the younger hunter is running of the fumes of dregs right now. "Maggie's daughter. Darcy Brown's BFF. Darcy is the latest, right?"

Dean unfolds the paper on the chair next to him and flicks to the picture. The dead girl's big hazel-brown eyes sparkle up at him, her grinning teeth gappy. Despite the curly pigtails and frilly dress, Darcy Brown reminds him of a much younger, much happier and much more innocent Sammy.

That thought, for some unknown reason, _hurts_.

"Yeah. Sally." Sam blinks slowly. Obviously his night of sleep was far from restful. Poor kid. "Good call."

"Yeah, well, I've always been the smart brother. Big brothers are always the wise ones." Sam shoots Dean an 'oh, really?' look and Dean breathes out a chuckle. "Bitch."

"Jerk."

They then drift into a semi comfortable silence, the only sounds coming from the kitchen. Dean desperately misses the good old days when he could walk straight up to the very gates of hell and just _know_ that Sammy would be right at his heels without question. But those days have long since been over and now, no matter how long it takes, he has to glue his shattered little brother back together again and replace some of the missing pieces. He can't let Sam, his Sammy, turn into their father.

Sam, blissfully oblivious to Dean's well-concealed inner conflict, is looking out of the window in a daze. Last night had been hellish to say the very least and the nightmares of Jess' burning body had kept him under, drowning him in his own fear and leaving him exhausted.

For the first time in his life Sam Winchester can empathise with his father. And that _terrifies _him.

A woman walks past on the other side of the street to the diner, heading into the bookstore. Sam stares after her, knowing that the middle-aged woman's face looks familiar. He snatches the paper from his brother and studies the painful image.

"What?" Dean asks, looking out of the window at the barren high street. Not even a damn bar in sight. "What's wrong?"

"Darcy Brown's mother just went into the bookstore across the road." Sam hurriedly gets to his feet, all thoughts of breakfast thankfully long forgotten in favour of the hunt. "Questioning time?"

Dean wants to say no, tell Sammy that the kid needs food and rest but he just _can't_. Not only will it cause an explosive argument between them but little kids are _dying _and who knows when the next girl will jump out her bedroom window?

"Yeah. Let's go, Agent Pulford."

* * *

**A/N: **So I survived my trip camping in the wilds of the New Forest avec my dad's family. To summarize; I nearly got my eye poked out by my little step-brother, found out I have more aunts/uncles than the original seven I thought I had and went for **four days without internet.**It nearly killed me.

Anywhore, thank you very much to the people who reviewed/favourited/followed this story; it really means a lot! And thank _you_ for reading it. The next chapter should be up on Tuesday and I'm gonna hopefully post a Teenchester one-shot tomorrow at some point.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it and **please let me know what you think! :D**


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